Sri Mulyani: APBN Becomes Instrument Finally Lowering The Poverty Rate In 2023

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani. (Photo: Doc. Ministry of Finance)

JAKARTA - Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said the state budget (APBN) became an instrument of the government in an effort to reduce poverty in Indonesia in 2023. “Our efforts to identify the poor through a survey of Social and Economic Registration (Regsosek) so that all of our APBN instruments can focus much more on the poor,” he said in Jakarta, Thursday. Sri Mulyani explained that the APBN instrument will be more optimal in reducing poverty by efforts to improve the data that will be carried out by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), namely through Regsosek. According to him, this data improvement will help the government in distributing social assistance and village funds and non-physical special allocation funds (DAK) to the community more accurately. What's more, this effort to reduce poverty is also the responsibility and target of all ministries, institutions and regions. “ If we have the same steps, we hope this can be reduced significantly more systematic and accountable,” he said. Head of the Fiscal Policy Agency (BKF) of the Ministry of Finance, Febrio Kacaribu, added that the poverty target in development indicators in 2023 reached around 7.5 percent to 8.5 percent. Febrio is optimistic that this target will be achieved as long as it is supported by strong policies including social protection such as the Family Hope Program (PKH) and social assistance. However, he emphasized that the commitment to reduce poverty is not only an effort in the short term but in the long term because the government must strengthen the resilience of the community. This certainly requires very close cooperation and collaboration, from the center to the regions,” said Febrio.